


big show, big results

by blooms



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Blow Jobs, Body Image, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Hiatus (Fall Out Boy), Van Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:12:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8937523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blooms/pseuds/blooms
Summary: In which it takes a candlelit dinner for Patrick to realize that Pete has been courting him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm DONE with the Semester From Hell, AKA most stressful semester of my life, and can now return to my regular state of drowning in WIPs and maybe even...finishing some?!
> 
> A formation days fic (Patrick is 18) which literally started because [Patrick likes "rhythm and romance"](http://petezapizza.tumblr.com/post/149563784161/) but it...kind of got away from me. Anyway, here we are! /poses

Patrick’s brain is fried from working overtime at the record shop today, forced to stay after closing to finish taking inventory because his co-workers are lazy assholes. So it’s a little hard to comprehend the scene in front of him.

First off, Marvin Gaye is playing. Second, the apartment is completely dark except for two candles set in the middle of the kitchen table bracketing a vase stuffed with red roses. A box of pizza from Pete’s favorite local shop sits next to them.

“I tried to cook something,” Pete says, materializing by Patrick’s side and scaring the shit out of him. He’s wearing dark skinny jeans and a black hoodie and he might as well be a shadow. “But I burnt it. Then I tried again and it tasted like shit. So...I hope pizza is okay.”

“Um,” Patrick says. His heart is thumping fast from the shock of Pete appearing out of nowhere and his overworked brain is still trying to catch up with the situation.

Pete takes his hand and leads him to the table. Patrick is too confused to do anything but allow himself to be led and seated. Pete even pulls the chair out for him before moving to sit kitty-cornered to him.

Pete gives Patrick a slice of pizza--margherita, it smells mouth-watering good--in a paper plate and waits until he’s taken a few bites to ask, “How was your day?”

Patrick tells him without really paying attention to what he’s saying, scarfing down pizza in between sentences because he’s starving. Pete makes sympathetic noises while Patrick complains about rude customers and having to stay late. He’s a good listener whenever Patrick wants to vent; he appreciates that.

“Yeah, so--what is this?” Patrick blurts once he’s done complaining, because he’s pretty sure he’s missing something really important here. His first instinct was that it’s some sort of joke, but there’s a little _too much_ happening at once. Everything feels off-kilter, like by crossing the threshold into the apartment tonight, he stepped into some strange alternate universe where everything is almost exactly the same but still slightly off.

Pete raises an eyebrow at him, like he heard Patrick’s internal monologue and thinks he’s being ridiculous. Then he raises both eyebrows, like he can _still_ hear Patrick’s thoughts, and now thinks that Patrick’s attempts to decipher the intricacies of his eyebrow motions are likewise ridiculous. None of this, Patrick knows, is what’s actually going on in Pete’s enigmatic mind, but as long as Pete’s being all non-verbal, it’s his best guess.

“Dinner,” Pete says at length, gesturing at the pizza slice in Patrick’s hand with his own.

Patrick stares.

“I also bought wine?” Pete offers, as if that explains anything.

“Oh,” Patrick says. “Okay.”

Patrick doesn’t really have anything else to say--work is work--but Pete chatters away about a book while they eat. He’s been trying to get Patrick to read it, and it’s not that Patrick doesn’t want to, but he’s just been so busy with work and writing and then he’s tired and can’t process the convoluted novels Pete’s so fond of. For now, Pete seems happy enough to hold a one-sided conversation about it, and Patrick starts to relax because it feels almost normal for half a minute, but then Pete hooks his foot around Patrick’s ankle under the table. Patrick sits up abruptly.

“Are you seducing me?” he demands. It’s a joke until the words actually come out of his mouth because, wait, that makes sense, actually. Pete must want something from him, and whatever it is must be major enough that, in some misguided way, Pete thought he had to make up for it--or at least soften Patrick in advance--with pizza and candlelight. And why _not_ pizza and candlelight, because Pete is prone to unusual overtures, or turning everything into a joke. Like emulating romantic seduction when really what he wants is to convince Patrick not to touch the wording of a particular line no matter how much smoother the rhythm would be if he changed it. Pete is really touchy about his lyrics, but Patrick is really touchy about his music, so he tries to understand. They still end up fighting more often than not, though, which could explain why Pete might want to preemptively protect a line he’s especially attached to.

Feeling a lot better now that he thinks he knows Pete’s endgame, Patrick waits for the inevitable punchline and subsequent request. Neither come. Pete just looks at him patiently, and it’s quiet for a full minute before Patrick starts to think that maybe this isn’t a joke.

“This isn’t a joke,” he tests out, wary.

Pete doesn’t even blink.

“And it’s not...you being weird. Like, you’re serious. Holy shit,” Patrick says, and the past couple months suddenly make a lot more sense, Pete giving him carnations for no apparent reason and paying for his sandwich at the diner a while ago and being weirdly insistent about sharing a milkshake when he usually wants his own, “have you been _courting_ me?”

A few weeks ago, Pete read some lyrics out loud to Patrick--at least, Patrick had thought they were lyrics, even if they were a lot mushier than Pete’s usual scorn and heartbreak, not at all like the other songs they were working on. Patrick doesn’t think he can be blamed for asking Pete to just hand the lyrics over because there wasn’t much point in reading it out loud, but it would explain why Pete frowned and slunk off. Patrick tries to remember the lines. Were they about him?

Pete ducks his head so his face is partly shadowed by his bangs, candlelight jumping across his features. “You just noticed?”

Patrick hates that crestfallen look on his face so he reaches over the table to grab Pete’s hand.

“Hey,” he says, squeezing. “Tonight is really nice. I mean, no one’s ever--” Candlelight dinner, Jesus Christ. “Thank you.”

Pete brightens, and Patrick smiles back, relieved.

Okay. He can deal with this. It’s not like Patrick’s worldview has just fundamentally shifted or anything. Except, oh wait, _it totally has_. Patrick’s crush on Pete has always been an afterthought not just because they’re best friends, but because Patrick can’t conceive of _anyone_ liking him back, least of all someone like Pete. Maybe he really did cross into an alternate universe.

Or Patrick has just been so willfully ignorant, his head so far up his own ass, that he somehow missed the fact that Pete not only likes him, but has been actively courting him.

 _You could have told me, you need to tell me these things_ , Patrick wants to complain, but Pete looks so happy now and, over the past couple years of knowing him, preserving Pete’s happiness has somehow become one of Patrick’s priorities.

“I would have come home earlier if I had known you had something planned,” Patrick says instead, because it’s true enough.

“S’okay,” Pete says around his pizza. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Pete brushes his foot against Patrick’s ankle again. Patrick twitches in surprise but forces himself to relax. This is so surreal.

“I kicked Joe out for the night anyway,” Pete continues.

And okay, wait, that has _implications_. Patrick hasn’t even come to terms with the fact that Pete apparently likes him back and maybe wants to kiss him. But tonight isn’t just courting, is it? Patrick said it himself--it’s _seduction_ , and Patrick’s mind is slammed with images of Pete pressing him up against a wall, kissing him, slipping his hand into Patrick’s pants, on the bed now, Pete fucking him--oh, fuck, Patrick fucking _Pete_ , fuck. Patrick is only one man--teen, really, barely eighteen, and not even like, a cool and experienced eighteen year old, no, Patrick has never so much as kissed anyone else before. Point being, he is abruptly, incredibly hard.

“Is that my record player,” Patrick says loudly, as if the images of him and Pete in bed together aren’t playing in his head in explicit detail. Earlier with the eyebrows was one thing, but he really hopes Pete can’t read his mind right now.

“Yeah,” Pete says nonchalantly, reassuring Patrick that Pete didn’t spontaneously develop telepathic abilities. “I asked your mom if it was okay. And I brought some of your records over--not all of them, though, you have way too fucking many for me to carry. You’ve been meaning to bring ‘em over anyway, right?”

He has, and the reason he never did is probably the worst part about writing music: not having time to listen to any.

“Does my mom know what...you’re doing?” Patrick asks.

“Of course,” Pete says, looking offended.

“Oh,” Patrick says faintly.

“I’ve been really serious about this,” Pete says, tapping his foot against Patrick’s calf.

“I’m starting to get that.”

“Patrick, hey,” Pete says, looking small and uncertain. “Are you--I’m--this is okay, right? I thought...”

“It’s okay,” Patrick says, probably too quickly, because he might still be trying to wrap his head around this but he absolutely needs to make sure Pete doesn’t feel rejected. “It’s really...perfect.”

And it is. It’s ridiculously cliché, but Patrick’s never pretended to hate it.

“I love it,” he says quietly, and Pete’s smile threatens to overtake his face, the entire room, Patrick’s _life_.

Pete tells him to keep eating before the pizza gets totally cold, and goes to bring out the wine. Patrick hasn’t drunk a lot, but his mom lets him sometimes on special occasions, so he accepts a glass and braces himself for the bitter undercurrent of alcohol. He still wrinkles his nose at the first swallow and Pete laughs softly at him, but the wine is surprisingly sweet, and by the time they’ve finished the pizza and maybe a third of the wine--Pete cut Patrick off pretty fast and didn’t drink much more himself--Patrick feels warm and full. He hasn’t showered, which usually he cares about because he’s a perpetually sweaty dude, but right now he’s ready to fall asleep where he’s sitting.

Pete stands though, and tugs Patrick up after him. He takes one of the candles from the table and carries it with him as he leads Patrick by the hand to Pete’s bedroom.

“Oh my god,” Patrick says when he sees the rose petals scattered over Pete’s bed. “Pete, this is too much.”

Pete ignores him, humming a little to himself as he sets the candle down on the nightstand. It illuminates a piece of paper on the stand, slightly crumpled and with the edges curling up like it’s been folded and opened several times.

“Hold on, I have to bring the record player in here,” Pete says, and disappears from the room.

Patrick waits a second, then picks up the piece of paper and sinks down onto the bed. He’s thinking it might be the poem Pete read that other time, but it turns out to be a list, written in Pete’s familiar scrawl.

  1. _get patricia’s blessing_



Patrick already wants to scream and light the paper on fire at the second mention of his mom tonight, and the candle is right there, inviting--but he doesn’t.

  1. _declare intent with flowers_
  2. _take him out to lunch_
  3. _woo him with poetry_
  4. _take him somewhere nice_
  5. _give him a present_
  6. _give him a candlelight dinner_
  7. _take him to bed_



Eight is the last item on the last item on the list, but below it are a couple more lines, hastily scribbled.

 _GO SLOW_ (this is underlined three times) _don’t scare him off he’s too special. only hold his hand and kiss his cheek unless he says more is ok_

Patrick wishes he’d been given some sort of notice because of-fucking-course more is okay, if only Patrick had _known_ Pete meant anything more when he held his hand or kissed his cheek. Like, how was he supposed to know it meant anything when Pete kisses everyone? How is giving Patrick a bunch of flowers without explanation a declaration of intent? Patrick wants to tear his hair out, but his hair is already thin enough as it is.

When Patrick looks up, Pete is back. He looks nervous.

“‘Take him somewhere nice’?” Patrick asks. He feels bad, but for the life of him he can’t figure out when that was, or what would even qualify as ‘somewhere nice,’ especially considering their budget, which is practically nonexistent, every spare dollar going into the band. Hell, Patrick had taken the money his mom had given him for prom tickets and thrown it into their studio fund; it’s not like he had anyone to go with.

“The record store,” Pete mumbles, scuffing his feet. “You know, the one you wanted to work at.”

“Oh,” Patrick says. “ _Oh_.”

  1. _get him a present_



The record. The fucking record. Of course Patrick can’t afford shit right now and neither can Pete, but he bought the record Patrick kept lingering over at the store anyway, never mind the fact that Patrick hadn’t even had time to bring his record player over to the apartment yet. But it’s here now, isn’t it? Pete took care of that too.

“You didn’t have to go through all this effort for me,” Patrick mumbles, ducking his head.

Pete pulls the list from Patrick’s hands, folding it back up. “I wanted to.” He threads his fingers between Patrick’s.

“I,” Patrick says.

Pete kisses him. He leans in slowly, giving Patrick all the time in the world to move away, but he doesn’t, and Pete kisses him. His mouth is hot, tastes like pizza sauce and wine, and Patrick whimpers. Patrick kisses back and he feels clumsy and inexperienced, but as first kisses go, it’s absolutely perfect.

Pete guides Patrick until he’s lying on his back on the bed, Pete holding himself above him, knees on either side of Patrick’s hips and surprisingly considerate not to press his weight down given how he usually deposits himself all over Patrick. It hardly matters though because Patrick feels him everywhere, feels the heat of him even where they’re not touching.

“You’re so beautiful,” Pete whispers, breaking away from Patrick’s mouth to nose his neck, start kissing there, and Patrick’s breath hitches. “Wanted this so much.”

“Me too,” Patrick says, hands scrabbling all over Pete’s back, not sure where to hold. “Want you.”

Pete groans, and his hands close over the hem of Patrick’s shirt--and of course this, after everything, is the moment anxiety rears its ugly head. Patrick feels like he’s been dunked in ice water.

“Wait.”

Pete sits up immediately, pressing his weight on Patrick’s thighs, and watches him, careful and quiet.

“It, uh,” Patrick stutters, because he doesn’t actually want to stop, even if his heart is beating fast more from anxiety than arousal at this point. “I can get you off?”

Patrick can actually feel Pete’s dick react to that even through the layers of fabric between them and holy shit. Holy shit. Patrick wants to touch Pete so much, wants Pete to touch him, and honestly, fuck his insecurities for getting in the way of all his late-night fantasies coming to fruition.

“What’s wrong?” Pete asks.

“Nothing,” Patrick lies. He shifts his legs until Pete crawls off of him, then pulls Pete down and switches their positions, so he’s the one on top, arms braced on either side of Pete’s chest. “Let me get you off. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Pete frowns up at him. “I _wanted_ you to have a good time.”

Patrick bites his lip.

“You’re beautiful,” Pete says earnestly.

Patrick flushes. “‘M really not.”

“Yeah, you are,” Pete shoots back. “You’re fucking gorgeous. I seriously want to touch you all over.”

“Pete,” Patrick whines. “I’m not.” He’s not skinny like Pete, or pretty like Pete. There’s nothing about Patrick worth looking at.

“Patrick,” Pete says, soft. He trails his hand lightly up and down Patrick’s sides. “You’re literally the most beautiful person in the world--no, wait, the universe. The whole universe, Patrick.”

Patrick shakes his head.

“Let me show you,” Pete says. “Please?”

Pete pushes up, forcing Patrick to sit back on his heels in Pete’s lap, and kisses him carefully. He doesn’t need to be so cautious. Kissing, Patrick has quickly figured out, he can do, and he wants more. He holds Pete’s head in his hands and kisses him and kisses him. He slides his tongue in and feels as much as he hears Pete moan.

Then Pete’s hands move, and the moment is lost again as Patrick snatches his wrists, afraid that he’s going for his shirt again.

“Patrick,” Pete says. “I don’t care how much you weigh. You know I don’t.”

“It’s not just...that,” Patrick mumbles, though all his fat and rolls don’t make this situation any easier either. “It’s.” He draws a breath. “There are a lot of...stretch marks.”

The words feel like poison in his mouth. Patrick hates every scarred line on his body. He knows there are so many--on his thighs, his waist, his lower back. He’s seen Pete, who half the time can’t be assed to put a shirt on, and why should he, when he’s so gorgeous and perfect and has nothing to be self-conscious about? Pete’s skin is dark and smooth and beautiful; the only marks on them are the patterns of ink Pete chooses to have.

“Let me,” Pete whispers.

Patrick doesn’t want to. He _really_ doesn’t want to. Every part of him is recoiling against the idea. But Pete is gazing at him so imploringly and Patrick forces himself to say, “Okay.”

“Sure?” Pete asks, looking at him seriously, and Patrick knows that for however pushy Pete usually is to get his way, if Patrick tells him no now, he’ll back off. Maybe that’s why he nods.

“Yeah. Yes.”

Pete smiles and kisses him softly. Then, achingly slow, Pete pulls Patrick’s shirt off for him. Patrick’s heart is ramming against his chest and he wants to tell Pete not to look. Which would, you know, defeat the purpose, so he just tries not to look too nervous as Pete nudges him down onto the bed. The rose petals are soft and cool and feel strange against his bare back, a momentary distraction, and Pete starts kissing him again.

“Wait,” Pete says a minute later, sitting up abruptly, and Patrick’s brain shoots off in ten different directions, all bad.

“I got distracted because you were reading the--but we need music!” is what Pete says, scrambling off the bed.

That was not one of the ten directions Patrick had been considering. He watches as Pete pops a record into the player and Elvis Costello fills the room.

“Um, not that I’m complaining--” --Patrick may or may not fantasize about having sex while his favorite records spin in the background-- “--but why?”

“I wanted it to be perfect for you,” Pete says, all raw honesty like he gets at particular times in the night. “And I wanted to show that I could be good to you. I know I’m not the best person, probably not the best friend and definitely not the best boyfriend--”

“Shut up,” Patrick says, insecurity being pushed to the backburner by the need to make Pete stop saying self-deprecating shit. “Oh my god, you did all of this _for me_ , Pete, so shut up and get back over here so I can kiss you.”

Pete smiles at that, and complies. Patrick’s a little disappointed to realize that he can’t really pay attention to the music, too caught up in kissing, and then he’s too caught up in it to even feel disappointed. Patrick pushes Pete’s hoodie off as they kiss, then tugs on his shirt until Pete takes that off, too. Maybe having Pete shirtless on top of him should make him more self-conscious, but Patrick has seen Pete shirtless more than enough times that it’s nothing new, and the heat of Pete’s skin feels so good against his own.

Pete starts kissing down Patrick’s neck, then his chest. When he bites down gently on Patrick’s nipple, Patrick whimpers and squirms and throws his arm over his face. Fuck.

“You’re so beautiful,” Pete murmurs between kisses, breath tickling Patrick’s skin. “So fucking gorgeous, Patrick.”

“Shut up,” Patrick whispers. Pete feels nice but Patrick can’t take anything he’s saying seriously when he can’t stop thinking about how ugly he really is.

“You are,” Pete says, and kisses down his torso.

Patrick’s stomach flips when he realizes Pete’s reached the stretch marks around his waist. But Pete doesn’t stop kissing him, and Patrick screws his eyes shut and tries to forget about his body and just concentrate on the feeling of Pete’s lips pressing against his skin. And then it’s not just nice, it’s _hot_ , the heat from Pete’s mouth all going straight down to Patrick’s dick until it’s straining against his jeans.

“Pete,” Patrick pants, “I need.”

Pete kisses his stomach. “What do you want? Anything.”

“Can you, fuck, Pete, can you blow me?”

Pete groans. “Fuck yeah, I can.”

He tugs Patrick’s jeans off, and Patrick has another flare of panic because he’s totally naked now, but then Pete’s mouth is around his dick and it’s an overload of new sensation. Pete goes down, fitting as much of Patrick as he can in his mouth, then slides back up and swirls his tongue across the head of Patrick’s dick. Patrick comes.

Pete yanks his mouth off.

“Shit, fuck, Pete, sorry,” he pants. Oh, God. That was officially the fastest and most embarrassing climax known to man. Patrick needs to leave, like, right now.

“It’s okay,” Pete says. “Sorry, I was surprised--but it was hot.” His face appears above Patrick’s, grinning, and there’s come-- _Patrick’s_ come--dripping down his chin.

“Fuck,” Patrick says faintly.

Elvis Costello’s voice fades into awareness. Yeah, Patrick really can’t pay attention to music while...doing things. Well, that kind of sucks, and kills a lot of fantasies.

But then Pete kisses him, pushing his tongue in insistently, and Patrick, breathless, forgets about the music again as he tries to keep up. Pete takes Patrick’s hand and guides it to his crotch, and Patrick palms him through the fabric. Pete moans, breaking the kiss to bury his face in Patrick’s neck, and ruts against him.

Patrick reaches his other hand down and fumbles to open Pete’s jeans. He can’t push them down though, because Pete wears skinny jeans that make his ass look great but cling way too tight and probably aren’t healthy for his circulation. Patrick’s told him this--well, the second part, anyway--more than once.

“Your pants are stupid,” he informs Pete now, who laughs and pushes Patrick’s hands away so he can wriggle out of his jeans himself, dropping back-first onto the bed and looking absolutely ridiculous as he kicks and squirms and pushes them off. Patrick snorts.

“You love my jeans,” Pete says.

“Ugh,” Patrick says, smiling, but then the view is distracting and he can’t remember any of his complaints.

Pete waggles his eyebrows, and Patrick shoves him.

“I was gonna blow you,” he says, “but not if you’re being cheeky.”

“Oh, fuck, fuck, please,” Pete moans, arching up, and whoa.

“Um,” Patrick says.

“Do you know how long I’ve been fantasizing about that stupid hot mouth of yours,” Pete mutters, pulling him in and kissing him roughly. “Fuck, Patrick.”

“Okay, um, I haven’t--I’ve never--” Saying he’s going to blow Pete and actually blowing Pete, it turns out, are two very different things.

“It’s okay,” Pete says. He huffs. “I’m not gonna last long anyway.”

“Jesus,” Patrick says. He shuffles down the bed on his knees and just--stares at Pete’s dick for a second. It’s not even hot--okay, fuck, it is--but mostly he just feels so out of his depth.

“You okay?” Pete asks.

Patrick licks his lips, steels himself. “Yeah,” he says, and fits his lips over Pete’s dick.

Pete inhales sharply, then releases it in a slow moan as Patrick sucks on the head. Fuck, he has no idea what he was doing and his earlier experience isn’t much of a reference point seeing as Pete basically put his mouth on his dick and Patrick came. So he just wings it, wrapping his fingers around the base of his cock to steady himself and flicking his tongue over the head because Pete did something like that and it was really good. He feels awkward, the way he’s crouching and craning his neck and probably drooling, and totally unsexy, but Pete is trembling under him and he reaches down and takes Patrick’s free hand, interlocks their fingers and squeezes.

“Patrick, Patrick,” he chants, and Patrick watches, fascinated, the way his chest heaves.

Patrick keeps sucking and playing around with his tongue. He has no idea how good he actually is--he figures, probably not at all--but Pete gasps and moans his name and then he’s pushing Patrick off, which is nice, because Patrick couldn’t do so much for Pete and he’s not really looking to choke on come during his first sexual experience.

“God, Patrick,” Pete says, still shaking from the aftershocks.

Patrick crawls up the bed to collapse next to him. In the background, Elvis Costello plays on, a reminder of everything Pete’s done leading up to this moment. It was sweet, but also a colossal waste of time. They could have been doing this from the beginning. That’s, like, two months of wasted sex.

“Next time you want something from me, can you save the complicated two-month rituals and just ask?”

Pete laughs, low in his throat. “Okay, sure. Then, will you be my boyfriend?”

“Yeah, Pete,” Patrick says with a laugh of his own. “I will.”


End file.
